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July 23, 2022
Author(s): Rav Hazzan Aliza Berger,
Parshat Pinchas
July 23, 2022 — 24 Tammuz 5782
Dr. Anonymous
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
Dr. John Fryer was a man of uncommon brilliance. As a child, he learned so quickly and completely that his teachers called him a prodigy. He was just five years old when he started second grade, 15 when he graduated from high school, and 19 when he graduated college and enrolled at Vanderbilt University Medical School where he became one of the youngest students ever to study psychiatry. He graduated in 1962.
Dr. John Fryer was also gay. Back then, homophobia was codified and enshrined by the medical world and criminalized by law, a legally sanctioned form of hate. It was legal to fire someone or refuse to rent to someone based on their sexual orientation. It was even legal to arrest someone simply for the “crime” of holding a lover’s hand or for being served alcohol at a gay bar. Fryer was taunted on the playground and in the classroom, and even in medical school, he found no reprieve. The foundational diagnostic text used by all psychiatrists, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM, listed homosexuality as a mental illness. In other words, Fryer was literally taught that the way he felt, who he was attracted to, was a disease.
Fryer wanted to be seen and loved for who he was. And, at the same time, he knew the only way he could follow his dream of becoming a psychiatrist was by pretending that he was not gay. The few times he shared his truth became painful reminders of the impossibility of living out of the closet. Once, for instance, Fryer had just started a residency program at the University of Pennsylvania and went to dinner with a close family friend. The conversation was flowing, and he felt safe to share about what it was like to be a closeted gay man in such a homophobic world. His friend seemed kind and understanding. But afterwar dinner, the friend apparently called a relative, who called the head of the residency program. The next morning, Fryer was summoned into the office and given the option to either resign or be fired.
In the years that followed, Fryer was careful to never disclose his sexual orientation, but the consequences of being outed still weighed on him. Instead of a competitive residency program at an elite school, he was forced to train at a state-run, psychiatric hospital. That, in turn, negatively affected his job prospects when he graduated. And, even once he found work, he was fired repeatedly for being too flamboyant or because someone suspected he was gay. Despite his uncommon brilliance and undeniable skill as a doctor, Fryer never found the kind of success he had dreamed of, the kind of success he deserved.
In psychology, there is a concept called learned helplessness. According to Psychology Today, “learned helplessness occurs when an individual continuously faces a negative, uncontrollable situation and stops trying to change their circumstances, even when they have the ability to do so.” This is how circuses train elephants. When the elephants are little, they tie them up and control their movements. The baby elephants learn that people are dangerous and all-powerful and that elephants are comparatively helpless. That learned helplessness means that even as the elephants grow, even though they become much larger and stronger than their trainers, they never try to overpower the humans around them.
We’re not elephants, but we also become habituated to the narrowness of our circumstances. We accept realities that are suboptimal, we stop dreaming about new possibilities and even sometimes fail to see the potential on the horizon. That’s what happened for our ancestors in the desert. We saw this so clearly in our Torah reading a few weeks ago—Parshat Shlach-Lcha. Our ancestors lived in Egypt. They learned some helplessness there. They learned that other people had the power to oppress and enslave them. And so even though God literally brought them out from Egypt with miracles and signs, even though promised to be with them, to empower them and enable them to conquer the land and pointed the way towards the Promised Land, they couldn’t hear it. After so many hundreds of years of slavery, our ancestors couldn’t imagine a world in which they were free, a world in which they were powerful and capable. They decided to send the spies to see this land and to evaluate it, but the spies too were clouded by their own fears. Their inability to overcome their learned helplessness meant that the entire generation that escaped Egypt died in the desert.
But that’s not the only story our Torah gives us. In today’s reading, we read about the daughters of Tzelophechad: Machla, Noa, Chogla, Milcah, and Tirzah. These women grew up in a world where they were second-class citizens. They could not own property, could not inherit. Their lives unfolded at the mercy of the men around them—first their fathers and then their husbands. They could not be witnesses, could not be judges, and did not hold power. They were seen as objects. Not only were they deprived of rights in their own community, but also there was no nearby community in which women were empowered. They had no frame of reference for a world in which they would be regarded or heard. And yet, when their father died leaving them destitute, they resign themselves to the learned helplessness that certainly surrounded them. They didn’t resign themselves to their fate of destitution. Instead, they tuned into the clarity of their own conviction, to their internal sense of worth, and petitioned Moses in front of the people for the right to inherit their father’s property. Because of their bravery and clarity, they were granted this right and stand out in history as a powerful example of what can happen when one overcomes the limitations of what has been and chooses to speak truth to power.
It’s so tempting in our world today to look around and to feel overwhelmed. On every front it can feel like nothing I do matters. Everything I’ve done to try to make a difference hasn’t changed the status quo. I’m powerless to affect change. But the Torah is very clear to give us these two stories in order to teach us that we have a choice. We can give into our learned helplessness, but what will that do for us? If we give into our sense of learned helplessness, if we give into our feelings of futility, that will just ensure that we die on the wrong side of the Jordan river. The Torah gives us the story of Machla, Noa, Chogla, Milcah and Tirzah to remind us that the most powerless people, the people that seem to have the worst odds are often the ones that can turn the tide. The trick is to shift our perspective.
Which brings me back to Dr. John Fryer. In 1970, activists were organizing to persuade the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from the list of mental disorders in the DSM. Knowing that doctors would more easily be persuaded by doctors, they called Fryer and asked him if he would speak in front of the APA on their behalf. Fryer refused. As he recently shared with the New York Times, “My first reaction was: No way. I had no security, and I did not want to do anything to jeopardize the possibility that I could get a faculty position somewhere. There was no way at that point that I was going to do that as an open thing.”
Fryer had been burned before. He had learned that sharing his sexual identity could only lead to professional ruin, and it was hard to imagine that the world could change to be more supportive and inclusive.
But one activist in particular, Barbara Gittings, kept calling. She told him about every colleague who said no, retelling every conversation. She spoke with Fryer about what might be possible, about how his testimony could change the world. She reminded him that just because the world was homophobic and cruel didn’t mean that’s how it had to be. She reminded him that he had the power of his experience and knowledge. Fryer said yes, but with one condition.
On May 2, 1972, Fryer was smuggled into the American Psychiatric Association Convention through back hallways as Dr. Anonymous, wearing a garish wig, a mask which had been melted and distorted to obscure his features, and a massive ill-fitting tuxedo. He spoke eloquently for ten minutes:
“All of us have something to lose. We may not be under consideration for a professorship; the analyst down the street may stop referring us his overflow; our supervisor may ask us to take a leave of absence…[but] we are taking an even bigger risk…in not living fully our humanity.”
After his speech, Fryer fled through the back hallways, cloaked in his disguise. He flew home and didn’t say a word about where he had been or what he had done. His life returned to normal. But his words had made a difference. The following year, the APA announced that they were removing homosexuality from the DSM in response to his brave testimony. That change wasn’t just a win for medicine, it also removed the legal basis for discrimination in employment, housing, health care, citizenship, the ability to have and parent children, participation in the military, and ultimately in marriage.
We are the descendants of the Machlah, Noa, Choglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. We are the descendants Dr. John Fryer. That means that we are not limited by our own learned helplessness. If we choose, we too can tune into the power of our conviction, we can use the strength of our lived experience and the clarity of our moral intuition to stand up for what we believe in.
What John Fryer said at that convention is so true. “All of us have something to lose…but we take an even bigger risk in not living our full humanity.” It’s time for us to speak truth to power.